


What Passing Bells

by lzg



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: 5 Things, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, author is very tired, could be m/m or f/m if you squint, or stay gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 03:16:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5075713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lzg/pseuds/lzg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five ways Chuck Hansen didn't die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Passing Bells

**Author's Note:**

> No graphic deaths, I promise. Written off the cuff and very unbetaed.

**1\. A different choice**

Herc sees it, the moment she realizes what he’s done.  Her face goes pure white and she curls up, clutching her stomach like he’s gutted her.

He did.

Angela spits a bare dozen words at him before stumbling away.

“I would have died for him.  How could you?  _How could you?_ ”

Their divorce is finalized when he is at the Academy.

*****

**2\. Whose miracle?**

They call him the Miracle Boy.  Son of one of the heroes of the Kaiju War, missing when his school is destroyed only to be found wandering and amnesiac.  Taken in by a kind couple until he remembers who he is and then—oh, the joyous reunion!  The TV cameras seem to surround him constantly, the reporters have a field day with his sweetly photogenic smile.

The last footage of him is not so sweet, however.

He’s still smiling as he enters the Jaeger bay late at night, as he climbs up to Lucky Seven.  The cameras are destroyed in the megaton-level explosion, of course, but they were transmitting continuously off-site.  Long enough to show him shooting the tech who tried to stop him, long enough to see the glow from Lucky Seven’s reactor spike.

His foster parents are found and dragged to court in chains.

Our miracle boy, they call him.  Proud and smiling at what their child has accomplished.

No one ever asked whose god granted the miracle.

*****

**3\. Real lucky**

It was a fucking lucky shot.

A tail with a spike on it that just managed to penetrate the armor, just managed to destroy a circuit breaker, just managed to create enough of a feedback loop to fry an essential part of his spine, just managed to not kill him.

He’s alive.  His father is choking off tears, because Chuck’ll never get in a Jaeger cockpit again, but he is alive.

Chuck doesn’t think much of it.  He can’t so much as be a tech now, not with the acrobatics required to fix a multi-story suit of robot armor.  Not with the speed of repair and sheer muscular strength involved.

They stick him in a very advanced wheelchair.  His dad gets him a service dog and names him Max.  The stupid thing keeps looking at him like he’s something special.  Like there’s anything to him now other than a drain.  They call in Raleigh fucking Beckett to be his father’s new partner.  Fucking spectacular.  He was so good that only a washed-up has-been can replace him.

His bitterness slowly drives everyone away.  A year later, he watches from LOCCENT as Striker Eureka takes on yet another kaiju off New Zealand.  No one pays him any attention, having learned by now that any attempts at contact would be met by pure hostility.  He watches, watches, watches.  They aren’t doing so well.  Carnifex is the solid armor plate of a centipede on steroids, hard to hold, harder to penetrate…but what is that flutter?  Without thinking, he engages comms for the first time and orders Striker to target the gray line along the left side of the carapace.

The results are messy and spectacular.

He unplugs the comms and wheels back to his quarters, ignoring everyone’s cheers.

Herc finds him there, staring at a pistol.

“Fucking dog keeps watching me.  Can’t do it with that stupid dog staring at me.”

The break is the slow crumble of cliffs, a thousand tons of rock sliding into the sea.  He holds on to Herc and shakes until there’s nothing left in him.

In the morning, he’ll try to talk to someone in Psych and end up in a more-or-less therapeutic screaming match.  In the morning, he’ll call Mako and try to awkwardly not-apologize.  In the morning, he’ll make demands of Chief Moran for a permanent station and curse at anyone who steps on Max.  In the morning, he won’t contemplate murdering Raleigh fucking Beckett with a fork when he goddamn bounces up and tries to flirt again.

The morning is good enough to start over; now, he needs to mourn everything he could have been.

*****

**4\. Burning ice**

The drift isn’t perfect.  It doesn’t have to be.  Both of them are too stubborn, too pig-headed, too determined to let something like a lightly lower drift compatibility stop them.

He brings rage and spite, the resolve that they will win no matter what the kaiju throw at them, the grit that drags them through every battle, however battered and burned they are at the end. _(Mother dead by kaiju.  Father and uncle crippled by kaiju.)_

She brings cold precision and an engineer’s eye for flaws, the tactical mind always ticking away, always spotting the gaps in kaiju defense, the perfect moment. _(Mother and father dead by kaiju.  Second father crippled by kaiju.)_

Young friendship turns into something that isn’t quite romantic love, isn’t a marriage of hearts and souls, but is a wedding of purpose.  Two weapons with the same target, locked together on the same course.  Anything in their way, be it parental protests, ranger objections, or the world’s horror at their age, is battered to pieces.

_(“If they can out-stubborn all of us, what chance do the kaiju have?” is both resignation and a prayer from three broken old men.)_

Echo Revenge has the highest kill tally of any Jaeger.  Ever.  They are the natural choice to be the spearhead, the ones who destroy the breach.  The love of two broken men saves them, who hadn’t wanted to be saved.  Sitting on escape pods in the middle of the ocean, they cannot comprehend an ending to the story that leaves them alive.

As the world celebrates, they come together to mourn their survival.  They had made themselves into weapons for a war that was over.  The last broken man rages at them, curses them for not accepting the sacrifices, for their inability to see the hope that they gave to the world—and who are they to hold themselves apart from the world?  They leave him exhausted and go up to the roof of the Shatterdome.

Chuck loses himself in the lights exploding across the sky.  Mako’s hand closing around his is a surprise, but when he turns to look at her, her eyes are locked on the fireworks.  He clutches her hand back, and they slowly breathe out a life of anguish to make room for something new.

*****

**5\. And babies ever after**

Hansen, Dr. Charles “Chuck” Scott.  On Sunday, January 22, 2096, Dr. Chuck Hansen passed away from injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident.  He was preceded by his parents, Gen. Hercules and Angela Hansen, and his brother, Capt. Max Hansen.  Dr. Hansen is survived by his beloved wife of 68 years, Dr. Miko Kusanagi, his children, Dr. Hercules Hansen-Kusanagi, Gen. Yui Hansen-Kusanagi (Kevin Moran), Dr. Angela (Violet) Jordan, Dr. Hinata Hansen-Kusanagi (Robert Schneider), Col. Hayato (Tarabai) Hansen-Kusanagi and Dan (Col. Jacob) Hansen-Kusanagi, 19 grandchildren, 9 great-grandchildren and by his sister, Rose Hansen.

Born 2004 on RAAF Base Amberley, his family settled in Sydney in 2012. Chuck graduated from South Sydney High School in 2019 after becoming the youngest person to win the FIRST Robotics Competition. After completing his B.S./M.S. Degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Melbourne in 2023, Chuck received his PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2027. Dr. Hansen became a Mechanical Engineering professor at the University of Melbourne in 2027, where he developed the robotics program into the finest in the world and won twelve MSE teaching awards.  Awarded nine times by the Australian Academy of Science, Dr. Hansen was contracted by the RAAF, iRobot, Google Robotics, ASA, ESA, NASA, CSA, ISA, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and Airbus for his design ingenuity.  His contributions were instrumental to the exploration and colonization of Mars.  In 2087 he transitioned to Professor Emeritus where he mentored and counseled undergraduate and graduate students until his passing. At the request of the family, in lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the UM STEM scholarship program, which was highly valued by Chuck. Visitation will be Friday, February 3, 2096, from 3:00PM-8:00PM at Harmon Funeral Home. Private internment at Melbourne General Cemetery.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This started off as something a lot darker. Title from Wilfred Owen's "Anthem for Doomed Youth."


End file.
